Video Killed Who?
by circus-freak-writer
Summary: Shawn Spencer goes missing after recording some heart-to-heart videos, on his way to a new city. Can the crew find him somewhere between San Francisco and Santa Barbara? And whose video could change everything? {Minimal language; 'damn', 'hell', etc}
1. How the story works

This is not the first chapter, this is how the story will go because it gets a little confusing. I'll be posting the chapter as soon as this goes up!

Basically here's how it goes: Between the ~~ marks are flashbacks. Anything italicized in the flashbacks will be the person explaining what's going on in the flashback (basically narrating), and sometimes some dialogue from different characters as well. You'll know who's explaining by the beginning of the chapter.

Ex: Right before the first flashback, **Gus** is explaining, so **Gus **will be explaining during the flashback in that chapter.

In later chapters, the flashbacks might switch around a few times in the chapter. If that's the case, the first one will end with ~~, there will be more dialogue, and another character will start explaining and transition into the next flashback. Eventually, it becomes more real-time but the first couple chapters are flashbacks just to get a history on the story.

I know this might get confusing so leave comments or PM me if you get confused, but hopefully it'll work out! :)

This story takes place when Shawn's taping the videos for everyone in the finale and driving to SF.

Enjoy!


	2. Any Other Day

**A/N: Short to begin with, longer ones to come! Please refer to the first page to see what all this stuff means!**

It sounded cheesy. It sounded like a movie. "It started out like any other day," Gus told Lassiter, shrugging. "I went to work. As I was preparing for the meeting I found the video and started playing it. I finished watching it, quit my job, and left for San Francisco."

"And when you got there?" Lassiter asks.

"When I got there, Juliet told me she hadn't seen Shawn at all or heard from him so we called around. Eventually it was called in about an abandoned, tan, driver's ed sedan on the side of the road somewhere about thirty minutes out, so we went there." Gus rubs his head, trying to keep some semblance of calm. The truth was that nobody was calm right now. Right now Shawn Spencer was missing.

"I watched the video, and it was Shawn just sitting the Psych office, explaining his decision to move, and his decision to not tell me he was moving. It ended right before I was supposed to go in for that meeting. I walked right in and quit."

"You're telling me you did something that serious and it went off without a hitch?"

"Shut up, Lassiter. Like I was saying…I didn't even pack. I drove straight from that office to San Francisco."

"Gus? What are you doing here?" Juliet was more than a little confused that Gus had shown up before Shawn. She didn't even know he was coming.

"Where's Shawn?" Gus asked, looking around eagerly.

"What do you mean? He hasn't shown up yet, I thought he wasn't gonna be here until tonight. What's going on, Gus?"

"I just got this," Gus pulls the disc from his jacket pocket. "He left it on my desk. I assumed he'd leave right after he gave it to me since if he stayed I could've confronted him."

Juliet was really confused and it threw me off. I thought maybe it was just Shawn messing with me, or hiding from the possibility of an argument.

"A video? Shawn told you he was leaving through a video?" Juliet shakes her head, surprised that even Shawn would say farewell to his best friend through a computer. "Ugh, I don't get him sometimes."

"You haven't seen him?"

"No, we talked yesterday. That's kinda weird, though, usually we text during lunch. I haven't heard from him at all." She pulls her phone out again to make sure.

"Mr. Guster, I have to say I'm surprised." Vick ducks under the crime scene tape, approaching the two of them. "I'm even more surprised since I haven't seen Mr. Spencer so far. Is he here?"

"We were just talking about that," Juliet mumbles, putting her phone to her ear.

Juliet called Shawn. We thought maybe he just got lost or something and was at a random restaurant somewhere off the highway.

"Is there a problem?" Vick crosses her arms over her chest, like she always did when things got serious.

"I don't know yet," Juliet replied.

**A/N: Like I said, the chapters after this are longer. This is really just an intro thing. It gets much better (at least to me). While you wait for the next chapter in this, maybe go check out my other psychfic? *cough* *nudge* *wink***

**I plan on updating both nightly since I have several chapters of both written. I'm also too stubborn to give up on stories, so they end!**

**-I have no idea why this keeps happening to my stories! If you tried to read this when it was all code-ish I'm sowwy!-**


	3. Exactly What Happened

**A/N: So I'm just gonna start checking my chapters as soon as they go up. I really am sorry they keep getting all messed up! Thank you if you're still putting up with it 3**

**Chapter one is fixed as far as I know, and here's chapter two!**

"O'Hara, can I talk to you?" Vick waved the head detective into her office. They had both been at the station for almost twenty four hours straight; Shawn was missing and they were hellbent on finding him.

"Yeah, Chief?" Juliet walked in, shutting the door behind her.

Vick leans against her desk as Juliet sits. "You know I can't let you work this case, and if I still had power of Lassiter, he'd be off of it too. Hell, _I _probably shouldn't be doing anything involved with it. It's too personal. You need to go home and rest, O'Hara."

"With all due respect, Chief, you might need me here. Gus is back in Santa Barbara helping Lassiter, so I'm the only one _here _who knows Shawn well enough to help." Juliet sat completely upright in her chair, ready to argue over staying.

Vick looks her over, carefully weighing options. "If you so much as step a toe out of line with this, I will suspend you until the case is over," she threatens. "Now, again, go over exactly what happened." Juliet sighs, launching into the story once more.

"_It was a pretty basic crime scene; you know that. There was nothing special about it, nothing struck me as odd. When Gus showed up and mentioned the video I was curious. He was definitely right, though. If Shawn left that video he would've left immediately. When I called it did ring, but there was no answer."_

"What do you mean there _might _be a problem, O'Hara? What's going on?"

"Chief, I don't know. There might be something going on with Shawn," Juliet replied, trying to keep a level head.

"Guster, call around and see if you can find us a trail. Figure out if anyone else got videos so we know where he was. O'Hara, I'll call in for Wilson to get him down here, but until then get back to the scene."

"Yes, Chief," they both reply, launching into their separate assignments.

"_I could barely concentrate on the scene. I was pulling my phone out every two seconds to see if I'd somehow missed a call or text, but there was nothing. I couldn't have been more relieved when Wilson finally showed up."_

"Wilson, thank God you're here. It's a simple crime scene; Vick's still here if you have any questions, and I'll be at the station later if you need anything." Juliet quickly briefed Wilson on the case, then walks out of the house to find Gus.

"Jules, anything?" Gus asks, coming up to her.

"Not yet. You wanna ride back with me to the station?" She points over to her car.

"Sure, lead the way." Gus falls into step behind her. "I called Henry, and he said he hasn't heard from Shawn since yesterday, right after the case. I tried to get ahold of Lassie, but I guess he's busy. I left a message."

"Alright, I'll try Lassiter when we get there."

"_We were about halfway to the station when the call came over the radio."_

The dispatch radio in Juliet's car had been going in the background, and they had both just blocked it out until a specific description caught Gus's attention. "Tan sedan, driver's ed car, abandoned right off the highway."

"Oh my God," Gus pointed at the radio. "That's what Shawn was driving. He _took _the driver's ed car?"

"I don't think I'd ask, even if we weren't in this situation."

"_We arrived on the scene; it was this little back road right off the highway. Shawn's wallet was sitting on the ground next to the car, opened and scattered around; his ID was in the pile of stuff. That's how we figured out it was him."_

"Gus, is this the car?" Juliet asked, looking back onto the highway to try and spot the black and white apparently on the way. The car looked pretty beaten up. The driver's side was scratched with black paint and dented in several places; the mirror was missing too.

"Yes. I'd know it anywhere. Look, that bullet hole is from the case we just worked." Gus points at a hole in one of the doors. Juliet uses the edge of her sunglasses to flip over an ID on the ground. "Is that what I think it is?"

She ignores him, wordlessly walking around the car. "Did any of the windows break?"

"Just the back one on the driver's side," Gus replies.

"How much damage was there?"

"Not this much. Just the window and the hole, really."

"Gus, step back to my car, don't touch anything. This is officially a crime scene." As they go back to her car to wait, Gus catches his eye on something. "What?"

"That." He points over towards a thicker patch of bushes.

"Stay here." Juliet pulls out her gun and approaches whatever was there. "Gus! Call Vick and tell her to get down here!"

"What is it?" Gus calls over.

"It's his stuff but…" she stares at the bags sprawled out, swallowing her panic. "…but it's all covered in blood."

**A/N: Another quick shoutout to me122334 for doing beta to all my awful grammar and our mutual death threats for updates.**


	4. Enough to Go Off Of

**A/N: Sorry for the Hiatus! I had a few performances this week and just passed out the nights I had free lol. I got a few PMs for leaving my other story hanging where it was. Hopefully you guys start to enjoy this one as much! :)**

**Also, I realized after writing this chapter that I didn't give it a great timeline. This chapter starts the morning ****after ****they find the car. Gus and Lassie are in SB, working together, two days after the case that was on the finale; the day after they find out Shawn's missing. (Hope that was clear...)**

Lassiter looks over notes he'd been taking while talking to Gus. So far they didn't know a lot but they had enough to go off of. "Okay. So he spent the morning recording these videos, and probably filmed all of them before passing them out. We're having someone analyze right now to see when the last clip of video was shot to give us a rough time frame for _that _but until then, we follow the trail. We'll go to your office to check cameras and talk to witnesses." With that, Lassiter stands up and walks out of his office, Gus following behind. "I'll meet you at my car, I have to grab something from my desk."

"Mr. Guster, I thought you called off for the day." The woman sitting at the front desk looked confused as her eyes bounced between Lassiter, who was obviously a cop, and Gus.

"I'm not here to work, Terry, I-"

Lassiter steps in front, pulling out his badge and cutting Gus off. "Chief of Police, Carlton Lassiter. Who runs this place?"

"I'll try and get a hold of him for you," Terry says, picking up her phone. "Um, what was this regarding?"

"A high priority police investigation," Carlton replies.

As Terry turns to the side to call someone, Gus pulls Lassiter to the side. "It might be a good idea if you let me talk, Lassie, these people know me and we have a better chance of them talking to me."

"Really?" Lassiter pulls back his coat slightly, revealing his gun. "I think I can manage."

"Fine. I'm gonna go to my office, see if I can find anything else Shawn might've left. I'll meet you at the surveillance room in ten?"

"Sure," he waves Gus off.

"Guster, find anything?" Lassiter was standing near the security area, directly outside of the door to the surveillance room.

"No. Looks like he just dropped off the disc, nothing else. You look over the tapes yet?"

"Yes. He pulled into the lot around twelve thirty and left by twelve forty-five. They're too busy to find him on the floor, we're taking it back to run through a recognition program down at the station. I want to get some statements before we leave. Now, Guster, lead me to the person with the biggest mouth on your floor."

"Meghan," Gus says definitively. "The woman can't go more than a few minutes without gossiping. If she saw Shawn, she'll tell you. The two make their way up to Meghan, pulling her into a vacant meeting room to talk.

"So, Miss…"

"Oh, just call me Meghan," the woman smiles slyly at Lassiter.

"Right, Meghan. Did you see this man here yesterday?" He slides the picture over to her.

"Oh, this is your friend, right?" She looks up at Gus. "Shane or something? Yea, I saw him yesterday. He looked pretty upset; he didn't stay long. Is he in trouble or something?"

"Something, alright…" Gus mumbles to himself.

"Around when was he here?" Lassiter asks.

"Around, Lunch? I'm not sure exactly, I just know it was right before my lunch break."

"Which is?" Gus prompts.

"Oh! Twelve forty-five to one-oh-five," she tells them.

"And what did he do while he was here?"

"Well first, he went into the break room and about ten minutes later he came out and went into your office," she points to Gus. "He was in there for three or four minutes. He looked kinda shaken up when he left; I almost stopped him to ask if he was okay but he kinda seemed like he wanted left alone."

"Anything else you want to tell us?" Lassiter doesn't look up as he fires questions, distracted by his notepad.

"Well there's rumors going around that he stole a whole thing of flax seeds before he left…but I'm not sure how he would've smuggled it out. Is that was this is about?"

"Well that was a waste of time. We knew when he came in and out, we didn't even need to talk to these people!" Lassiter throws himself into the driver's seat, exhausted after spending an entire afternoon asking the same questions to people who only cared about the gossip involved with a police investigation.

"Well Shawn only gets '_shaken up_' when he's getting ready to talk to one person: his dad. So we should go there, talk to him," Gus suggests.

"No," Lassiter shakes his head. "We still can't confirm that he's missing since it hasn't been the right amount of time, nor is there any solid evidence in _our_ jurisdiction. There is _no _way I am pulling another Spencer into this case unless we need to."

"Lassie, we found the car he was driving abandoned with signs of being driven off the road, and all his things scattered around the area covered in blood! It's safe to say he didn't just wander off to find something to eat. If you don't go to Mr. Spencer, I will."

**A/N: Henry's coming into the story! Can he find his son ****_this _****time? Come back to find out. **

**Hope y'll have a nice night (if it's night for you. If not...have a nice_)!**

**Also, I always love reading reviews! Let me know how you're enjoying the story and if you think I could do anything better :) I appreciate any corrections; I'm all about better writing!**


	5. Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing (maybe)

**A/N: Remember when I said I was gonna do better at updating? I was going to but then Easter...Anywho let's just ignore that and enjoy the chapter!**

**~Jules starts narrating****this chapter~**

"_We didn't get a lot done before you got there, really just put the tape up."_

"O'Hara, what's going on?" Vick ducks under the crime scene tape, approaching the head detective.

"Chief, at the point we're pretty sure this is Shawn's car. His wallet and ID were found right here," Juliet points to the scattered items still on the ground. "As well as his belongings in the brush over there, covered in what appears to be blood."

"Where's Guster?"

"He's on the phone with Lassiter, over there by my car," she tells Vick.

"O'Hara, stop pacing," the Chief sighs. Juliet, not realizing she had been nervously working her way back and forth, quickly dug her heels into the ground. "Given the circumstances, I should just send you packing." Juliet begins to protest but Vick just raises a hand. "However, you're good at what you do. You can stay if you keep out of the way of the investigation. At least for now, you're to sit here and do nothing."

"_And that's exactly what I did. Nothing. I sat and watched the CSI guys do their thing and left as they were getting ready to tow the car."_

"Well, Gus, I'll get you back to your car. Do you need a place to stay?" Juliet asked, starting her own vehicle.

"Oh, no. Thanks though. I'm actually gonna be driving back to Santa Barbara, help Lassie on that front. I figured if we had one person here and one there that knew him really well we'd have a better go at investigating this."

"Yea, good point," Juliet nods her agreement.

"So I dropped Gus off at his car, which was still at that house scene, and came straight here. I've been working, doing paperwork…but I've kept out as best I can," Juliet finishes the story, making a point of saying she wasn't involving herself.

"Well if you want on the case, you can work the press," Chief tells her. "Apparently one of the guys at the scene last night overheard Shawn's name and it's going wild. Do damage control on that if you're going to insist on staying. You're dismissed."

"Yes, Chief." Juliet stands, quickly exiting the office. Once at her desk, she pulls her phone out and calls Gus.

"Jules, anything new?" He answers.

"No, nothing yet. I just got put on press. Head Detective of the SFPD is on press duty for a high profile case involving a prestigious police consultant." She pauses, thinking about what she said. "Can we agree to never tell Shawn I called him a prestigious police consultant?"

"Never even happened," Gus agrees. "Lassie and I are on our way to my office to see when Shawn was there, start getting a timeline. They also have someone analyzing the videos to see if they can tell when they were shot."

"Alright. Who's working press over there for this case?"

"I think it's Joe." Juliet hears Lassiter say something in the background. "Yea, Lassie said it's Joe."

"Okay, I'll give him a call." With that she hangs up on him, redialing for the SBPD's best press man.

**~~~~~character jump~~~~~**

"I don't think Chief told her," Gus tells Lassie after Juliet hangs up.

"Of course they didn't tell her, Guster. What would giving her that information do other than make things worse? Nothing," Lassiter answers his own question.

"Whatever, you ready to go scar my co-workers? I'm sure you're looking forward to making it bad enough they'll never talk to me again."

"Guster, my methods of interrogation may not be a carbon copy of protocol, but it works. I get results."

"And give nightmares," Gus mumbles to himself.

Lassiter heard Gus's smart remark, but chose to ignore it. His mind was still on the disc he'd spotted right before they left. Part of him was telling him it was one of Shawn's movies, but he had convinced himself from turning it over to evidence since he hadn't had a chance to confirm yet.

Lassiter had no idea what to do. He was watching this video, and Shawn was about to _finally _admit it. After eight agonizing years of _knowing _he was going to say it. "The truth is that I am not-" the screen goes blank just before Shawn's admission. Lassie ejects the disc, takes it between his fingers, and as he goes to snap it, Brannigan walks in. Instead of destroying it, he throws it into the drawer behind his desk.

"Brannigan, what do you want?"

**A/N: You all know what happens when she walks in. Buzz is a detective! But I thought it would make a better story if Lassie has the disc. What if it holds the key to finding Shawn? Will Lassie rat him out? *intense music plays in background***

**Happy belated Easter to those who celebrate it and I will see you back here tomorrow...probably. Byeeeee**


End file.
